


So Heavy The Crown

by galforce (boxofwonder)



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: BL Route Spoilers, Character Study, Established Relationship, F/F, Naturally also BE spoilers, Post-Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 04:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxofwonder/pseuds/galforce
Summary: “I thought your fear was to die too soon. Now you ask to be killed?”“I stand between you and your justice, do I not?” Dorothea asked, taking Edelgard’s wrist and lifting it. Her touch was rather gentle, her hand clammy with nerves. “You can choose what kind of queen you will be right this moment, Edie. One with a heart, or one without. You know my opinion on the matter.”To keep the woman she loves from becoming too cold and cruel, Dorothea will do what it takes. No matter the cost.





	So Heavy The Crown

**Author's Note:**

> Both of them are the love of my life and also each other's and my lesbian heart just thinks that's neat.
> 
> BL Route Spoilers even though I have not played it, but my best friend told me a Thing that happened and I needed to character study Edie and this happened.

“Edelgard, is it true?”

So seldom did her lover use her first name that the Empress halted, assuming her hunch of what Dorothea had come to talk about was true. She carefully placed the quill down. “I do not remember you knocking.”

Dorothea slammed the door shut decisively. “And I do not remember you sacrificing  _ your own people _ .”

Yes. Edelgard rose from her chair, turning to see Dorothea in a simple gown, hair tied into a loose bun. She was beautiful, and the anger flashing in her eyes did not take away from that in the slightest. “It was not an easy decision to make.”

“It was not a  _ decision  _ to make!” Dorothea shouted, eyes welling up immediately. She had always been … sensitive to personal loss. Bernadette and her had been close. 

Edelgard would not point out it had been the same for her. 

“If it consoles you, she defected and turned a traitor to our cause to save her own life.” Edelgard would die for it without hesitation. Every day more, she died a little more, another piece of her heart withering away until a bramble of thorns and ice was left to guide this country to victory, to freedom. 

Edelgard would suffer so nobody else would have, after all this was over, after all the bleeding and grief had passed. 

“A  _ traitor _ ?!” Dorothea blustered, fists clenched as she strode towards Edelgard, shaking with rage. “It was you who betrayed her! All of us! It is bad enough this war forces us to kill our enemies, but to kill  _ our own _ ?! It was  _ Bernie!”  _

It was baffling to Edelgard that Dorothea had been her lover so long and yet had not understood that Edelgard was prepared to sacrifice everything. She had assumed, back when her classmates took up arms along her despite Edelgard expecting differently, they had recognised her will and her drive and followed knowing full well such a thing might happen. It was painful, and it was getting harder every day. But if she faltered here, every loss before would have been for nothing. 

“War has its prize. It will always claim those we love.”

“This wasn’t  _ war _ ! This wasn’t a  _ battlefield  _ where these things happen!” Dorothea was so close now Edelgard could smell the scent of her perfume, could see the specks of honey in her green eyes, usually gentle as Spring and blazing with fury. Love could turn to hatred so easily. Had Edelgard not always known? “You gave the order. You  _ let her die.  _ You were ready to!”

Edelgard met her livid eyes unflinching. “I did what had to be done. You always knew I would.”

Dorothea looked stricken, her anger breaking apart and showing something vulnerable and aching before her expression found its way back to her rage. She set her jaw, getting up into Edelgard’s face. “What is it then,  _ Edie _ ? If that was me out there, would you sacrifice me, too?”

Edelgard pressed her lips together. She was hesitant to give her answer, not because she faltered, but because she could see the impact it would have on Dorothea. Because despite everything, Edelgard had chosen her, loved her, even though she knew one day it might mean to sacrifice who she loved for her ambitions. 

Her silence was enough, though. Dorothea’s face fell, anguish twisting it. She fisted her hands in Edelgard’s collar, but her grip was weak, fingers shaking. “How could you?” she breathed, voice breaking away. “I thought you - you said you loved me -” She let go as if Edelgard were poisonous, stumbling away. 

Even just like this Edelgard could see something had broken irreversibly. 

Here was a second loss. Bernadette first, and now Dorothea. The pain of it filled her entire body, made her burn alive where she stood. Watching Dorothea fall apart made every instinct in her rush to reassure her, kiss her, hold her and tell her she loved her, loved her, loved her. But Edelgard remained calm, steady. Untouched. 

If the torture of her childhood had taught her one thing, it was to remain expressionless in the face of being torn apart. Nobody had a right to see her pain. She was a figurehead, and the smash of her axe would split open the dawn of a new future. 

“I love you,” Edelgard said evenly. The truth, though it would not reach Dorothea without the necessary despair and flourish she yearned for. “I have told you there is no story of me without you. If yours were to cut short, I would carry your memory with me until I have brought a future you would be proud of.”

It was the biggest, most passionate confession of love she was capable of. Looking at this woman and laying the empire at her feet. But Dorothea’s tears were spilling. “You would sooner watch me die than keep me with you,” she said quietly, voice steady with conviction. 

“If there were a future where we can be together until old age, I would welcome it. But few of us will be granted such fates.”

“Well,” Dorothea snapped, wiping at her cheeks with angry, jerking motions. “It would certainly help our chances if you weren’t so ready to cut our throats  _ yourself. _ ” 

“I am Empress, Dorothea. I do not act for my own desires but those of millions. If I were to falter because of my own foolish heart, I would not be fit for the position.”

“And yet where will we be following a woman who cannot love?” Dorothea asked, whirling back around and not bothering anymore to wipe her cheeks. She let her tears fall freely, boldly, and despite everything Edelgard could not help but admire her for it. “When there is nothing in this world you’d show mercy to, how would you show it to your people? When will it be  _ enough,  _ Edie? When you start killing and burning foe and friend alike, when will you  _ stop _ ? Where is the line?”

The line. There was none. All was fair in a world that had to be purged of monstrosities and yet clung to them so desperately, them and their false doctrine. “I soak my hands with blood so others won’t have to. When the time is right I will offer my life up to my cause the same way, when I know the Empire safe I -”

“No! You  _ bathe  _ in blood, Edie, and you drag all the soldiers with you. We follow you for a reason, but as our Empress it is you we look to to set an example. What kind of country will rise from your values?” Dorothea grit her teeth, shaking with resolve. “A country of those ready to turn around and stab their friends in the back? How can you fight for the greater good when you become the worst this world has to offer? Don’t you see?”

It was Dorothea who did not see. In the end, nobody would ever understand what drove Edelgard. How could they perceive the suffering she had survived and wished to protect everyone from? “If I were the softhearted leader you wish to love, I would have died on the battlefield years ago. We would have never gotten this far. The world would fall back to chaos, and I will not let it. If you do not agree with me, I would like to remind you that I never forced you to stay by my side.”

A strangled … laugh escaped Dorothea. She reached up, yanking the tie from her hair as if it helped her, to have the waves of it fall loosely around her shoulders. She inhaled deeply. “So this is it, then? I tell you my opinion and you wish to break things off with me? I chose you, despite knowing what it would mean, because I was certain you would hold onto me until old age. I thought you loved me.”

“And I’m telling you,  _ I do,  _ but I also love my country -”

“No, Edie. No.” Dorothea smiled without mirth. “Love means you care for what your love does to the one you give it to - be it a person or an entire country. But if you only care for your own values and ideals, that is called obsession.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, exhaling shakily. Still, her voice remained steady. “Lucky for you I  _ love  _ you too much to let you fall for that. I will not let you become the cold tyrant you are about to become.”

“How very kind of you,” Edelgard spat, fists clenched at her sides. “I thought in your eyes I already was a cold tyrant who never loved you. Quite the convenient narrative, is it not?”

Dorothea did not answer. Instead, she brushed Edelgard as she passed her by to pick something from the desk. Edelgard turned in outrage, expecting the letter she had drafted to Bernadetta’s family to be snatched, but came up short when Dorothea held up a gleaming letter opener, sharp as a dagger and fashioned in the look of one. 

“Is this it, then?” she asked, eyeing the woman she had loved most in the world. “You will strike me down?”

“Edie, you know I am from the opera,” Dorothea said, her voice holding flourish but her eyes impossibly dark. She looked almost … afraid. “Should you not know me well enough to realise my solution will be far more dramatic?” She lifted the letter opener, offering it to her. “Take it, Edie.”

Unthinking, she did. What kind of trick was this? Edelgard looked down at it in her hand, and back up at Dorothea, who looked dishevelled and pale. Her pupils were blown wide. “Kill me, then.”

Edelgard blinked. “What?”

“Go ahead,” Dorothea said, fingers trembling until she clenched her fists to hide it. All her bravado was flat, but she took another step forward, craning her head to offer her neck. “I have told you, have I not? As long as I live I will not let you sacrifice our friends. I will not let you become cold, and cruel.”

Edelgard felt her own heart pick up pace as she realised what Dorothea was asking of her. How she planned to put her to the test. It was  _ quite  _ the dramatic display, but nothing about it inspired fondness as it usually did. Edelgard’s stomach curdled. “I thought your fear was to die too soon. Now you ask to be killed?”

“I stand between you and your justice, do I not?” Dorothea asked, taking Edelgard’s wrist and lifting it. Her touch was rather gentle, her hand clammy with nerves. “You can choose what kind of queen you will be right this moment, Edie. One with a heart, or one without. You know my opinion on the matter.”

Edelgard’s own hand did not shake. She had suffered worse in her life. This would not throw her. She was not only Edelgard, she would never  _ only  _ be the girl. She was an empress, a guiding light. She had to protect an entire world. “Stop this foolishness, Dorothea. If you hate my methods so, leave and never look back on me. Do not throw your life away out of pettiness.”

“Pettiness?” Dorothea leaned closer, her lips almost brushing Edelgard’s. With it came a hundred memories of those lips on hers, in joy and despair, huddled in a temporary camp scared and so much younger, meeting in victory as they claimed their first huge win. “Right now my role in our story is to save you or die trying, Edie.”

“There is no saving me,” Edelgard grit out, twirling the letter opener and gripping its heft. “I am walking this path I have set out upon and any obstacle  _ will  _ be crushed. You cannot save me from what I must do.”

Dorothea put her arms around Edelgard’s neck, and for the first time that comfort felt like a noose tightening. They’d had their differences before, but never like this. Never so fundamentally. Edelgard should have known things would come to an end this way, but she had been blinded by this weakness of hers, this love she had not been able to harden her heart against. 

“Do not make me do this,” Edelgard said, driven into a corner in the comfort of her own rooms. This was worse than the battlefield, worse than looking out upon the army under her command and realising Bernadetta could not make it out. This was needless death, this was Dorothea’s stubbornness. She was too bright to die like this. “Leave. Leave the Empire if you must, join our enemies. Turn against me and meet me on the battlefield.”

“I will not leave you,” she breathed, hugging Edelgard tight. “When I chose you, I chose you ‘til death. You made me a promise. So choose me or choose a world without mercy.”

The worst part was, Dorothea was obviously not confident in this wager. Despite how hard she tried to remain relaxed and no doubt believe what was between them could outweigh the needs of an Empire, she was nervous. Terrified. 

Was it bravery or foolishness that drove her to this? Edelgard could not decide on only one of the two.

She placed the tip of the opener against Dorothea’s soft stomach, remembering when she had caressed it, kissed it. She knew every scar on it, the dip of her navel, the way Dorothea’s muscles jumped when Edelgard’s breath warmed her skin there. “Dorothea,” she said. Almost begged - almost. An empress could never stoop so low. “Do not make me do this. Do not throw your life away.”

“It’s in your hand,” Dorothea said, muffled against Edelgard’s neck. “Do not throw your heart away. It’s what this country needs. You’re better than this, Edie.”

She moved the blade - felt the tip pierce skin as much by the feeling of it as Dorothea’s sharp intake of breath. “Stop this,” Edelgard commanded. 

She hoped Dorothea would pull away, let go of her before she had to do more than draw droplets of blood.

But Dorothea’s grip only tightened. “Do it,” she gasped. “It takes much more to kill me than that. Hasn’t war taught you that much?”

Edelgard squeezed her eyes shut, a muffled cry escaping her as she shoved the blade into her beloved’s stomach. 

Dorothea - exhaled. 

She wheezed on her intake of breath, knees going weak, and Edelgard braced her to help her sink to the floor, opening her eyes to the blood of her lover pouring over her hands. There were no gloves, only her skin, pale from never seeing the sun. Stained red, red, red. 

Dorothea’s eyes were wide open, in shock and pain. Edelgard made a choked sound and helped her lie down, trying not to move the weapon. She had pushed it past all vital organs, she knew it by the heart of her, but it still had done damage, so much of it. “Dorothea -” Her voice broke. 

There was so much blood. It gushed along her sides, red against the red of Dorothea’s gown, and into the pale carpet. 

Dorothea lifted her hand against Edelgard’s cheek, tears in her eyes, and said something strange. “You’re crying.”

Edelgard was not. She was only focused on the wound - that letter opener looked so terrible there. “I’m going to pull it out now,” she said, trying to recall Byleth teaching her healing magic all those years ago. Hers was most rudimentary. 

How could she have achieved so much but overlooked something so vital? Anytime on the battlefield it might be needed, and - 

Dorothea. This was Dorothea beneath her. She had done this. 

Edelgard should have never hurt who she loved.

Edelgard should let her die to not get in her way, let the last of her weakness die with Dorothea.

“It really hurts, Edie,” Dorothea said softly. 

She had done this.  _ She had done this. _

She curled the magic into her left palm, gripping the letter opener with her other. Its grip was slippery now, but she managed to pull it back out. 

Dorothea’s groan of pain was guttural, rang through her whole body. Edelgard pressed a hand to the wound, praying to stop the bleeding and close it long enough to get a healer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want this. Any of it. You, her, I - it’s just how it must be, but if I could change it, I would -”

“It -” Dorothea gasped, her hand shaking violently but still finding Edelgard’s wrist. Like before. She still held on. “Doesn’t have to be - like that -”

A sob escaped Edelgard, which was a curious thing, all things considered. Her tears flowed freely as Dorothea lay in her own blood because of her. “Yes, it does. Look at me - I cannot be weak, I cannot love, I must -”

“Listen to me better,” Dorothea demanded, her voice so weak, her eyes fluttering. But still she - “I have many skills, you know.”

“I know that!” Edelgard accused. How could she not? Dorothea had been the first thing Edelgard noticed in any room for years now. “Is this doing anything? Is the pain easing?” She lifted her hand, but it was hard to tell if Dorothea was still bleeding when all she  _ could _ see was blood. 

“If you kill your heart - you kill your country.” Dorothea gripped her wrists more tightly, and Edelgard could feel her own pulse beating against her fingers. “But it’s -  _ alive  _ -”

If only Dorothea wouldn’t waste her energy on consoling her. Edelgard swallowed a fresh flood of tears and put her arms beneath Dorothea, lifting her into them. “I’m so sorry,” she gasped, pushing to her feet. As if that would ever,  _ ever  _ be enough. 

She burst through the door, opening her mouth to call out to Hubert, but there he was.  _ There he was. _ “A healer. Call Linhardt.”

Hubert did not bother with questions. “Right away,” he said, and when she made no gesture to take him up on his offer to carry Dorothea for her, he strut ahead briskly. As she so often had in war and despair, Edelgard followed the path he prepared.

\---

“You are still here.”

Edelgard jolted from her thoughts hearing Dorothea’s soft voice, eyes taking in her awake state hungrily even as Edelgard could not bear meeting her gaze. The shame she felt was overwhelming. Sacrificing Bernadetta in the brink of battle was one thing, but what she had done - “Of course I am. I will … leave, if you wish me to.”

Dorothea looked down at her hands, folded over the blanket of the infirmary cot. “I probably should want that, shouldn’t I?”

Edelgard swallowed, grateful to know Hubert guarding the door so she had not to worry so about the weakness she was showing. “Yes.”

Dorothea exhaled and closed her eyes with her sigh. “I want you to stay, Edie. I guess I truly am a tragic opera character.” She said it with a weak chuckle, but Edelgard found it hard to be amused by anything about this situation. “Our opera has taken quite a turn, has it not? Stabbed by my own lover … the people won’t be able to believe it.”

Edelgard wanted to ask her to stop joking, but who was she to ask anything of Dorothea anymore? “I understand if you …”

“Wish to leave you? Stab you in turn? What is it that you are going to say, Edelgard?”

What was it, indeed? “I understand if you never wish to be near me again. It is perhaps the better idea …”

“The better idea would have been to elope with a sweet-hearted young man without a fortune and make an honest life in a village somewhere, singing as I … bake bread.” Dorothea sighed, rubbing at her temple. “You were never the better idea. You were the choice my heart made. And I thought I was the same for you.”

Edelgard felt shame wash over her. Shame to be so small and vulnerable, shame to be too weak to pull through, and too cruel not to have harmed Dorothea. Both and neither, she was as terrible a lover as she was an empress. 

Edelgard wished she could take her hand. Wished to be close. Wished to mend that wound herself, purge the scar, make it so this had never happened. But it had, and she had always carried the consequences of each of her actions. This could not be an exception. “I am sorry I could not give you what you wanted … what another would have given you. What you deserve.” 

Dorothea lifted her arms towards Edelgard and held them there, looking at her expectantly. After a heartbeat, Edelgard stepped close enough to be touched. Instead of harming her, Dorothea touched her kindly. She reached up to her braids, unwinding her hair from the horns of her crown. “What are you doing?” Edelgard asked softly.

“I don’t want to talk to the empress,” Dorothea replied stubbornly, even as she winced when she sat up to reach her better. “I want to talk to my Edie.”

Her Edie. 

“I don’t know how to be an empress and have a heart capable of love,” Edelgard confessed as Dorothea reached to the other side of her crown, unwinding the hair there as well. Even when it was tangled, she soothed the strands apart with patience. Edelgard would have deserved otherwise. 

Dorothea pursed her lips. “Well, not stabbing me again is a good start.”

“How can you … joke about this?” Or be this close to her? Stand to even look upon Edelgard anymore?

“I can joke or I can fall into despair, and between these choices I know what I pick.” Dorothea curled her fingers around the crown, and even though Edelgard should have protested, she let her lift it off her head, into her lap. Edelgard’s hair fell loosely around her face now, dishevelled like Dorotheas, who traced the horns of the crown with her finger, not looking at Edelgard as she spoke. “Just like you made your choice.”

Just like Edelgard had chosen her ambitions, without the backbone to see them through. She had pushed Dorothea away and now she - now that the weight of the crown was not on her head, she - 

“You chose me.”

Edelgard only stared at her. “I stabbed y-”

“You chose me,” Dorothea said, with more conviction. “Even though I wish you knew you would before you stabbed me. But … at least you listened to me. I … am not saying I will forgive you for this anytime soon. But neither will I give up on you and abandon you. Somebody … somebody needs to keep you human. I knew that was what might happen, when I chose you to spend my life with.” Dorothea pressed her lips together. “It’s awfully heavy, that crown. How would you keep a heart if you won’t let me share this weight?”

Share it. She … had never considered. Dorothea would be a minister in her Empire, not for personal reasons but because of her skillset alone. Making her Empress alongside her, making it official … taking her as a wife, it was all possibilities that had seemed unattainable but were such a sweet dream now lost forever. Despite what she said, how could Dorothea ever consider her again for when this wretched battle was over?

“I do not know what to say to that,” Edelgard breathed. 

Dorothea sighed softly. She placed the crown on the table next to her cot, and patted it. “Put your head here.”

The least Edelgard could do was indulge her, though her body remained tense in anticipation of whatever was to come when she put her cheek upon the rough linen sheet. Until … until Dorothea’s hand settled on her hair, fingers brushing through it, only interrupting their rhythm to smooth out the aches of where the crown had sat too tight, too heavy, too long. “Then be quiet, Edie, and listen.”

And she did. She closed her eyes as Dorothea hummed for her, that stupid song she had made up when both of them had been girls at the academy, the grand opera that she still insisted would be on stage one day. The one with added blood, whose end was open. 

Already Edelgard had almost turned it into a tragedy, yet here she was, exhaling and relaxing as Dorothea sang for her and touched her with love. 

Edelgard closed her eyes and chose her heart, for better or worse. 


End file.
